Retroreflective materials are employed for various safety and decorative purposes. Particularly, these materials are useful at nighttime when visibility is important under low light conditions. With perfect retroreflective materials, light rays are reflected essentially towards a light source in a substantially parallel path along an axis of retroreflectivity.
Many types of retroreflective material exist for various purposes. These retroreflective materials can be used as reflective tapes and patches for clothing, such as vests and belts. Also, retroreflective materials can be used on posts, barrels, traffic cone collars, highway signs, warning reflectors, etc. Retroreflective material can be comprised of arrays of randomly oriented micron diameter spheres or close packed cube-corner (prismatic) arrays.
Cube-corner or prismatic retroreflectors are described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,712,706, issued to Stamm on Jan. 23, 1973, the teachings of which are incorporated herein by reference. Generally, the prisms are made by forming a master negative die on a flat surface of a metal plate or other suitable material. To form the cube-corners, three series of V-shaped grooves, each series of grooves being parallel and equidistant to the other grooves in the same series, are inscribed in the flat plate such that the grooves intersect at 60 degrees. The die is then used to process the desired cube-corner array into a rigid flat plastic surface.
Further details concerning the structures and operation of cube-corner microprisms can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,684,348, issued to Rowland on Aug. 15, 1972, the teachings of which are incorporated herein by reference. A method for making retroreflective sheeting is also disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,689,346, issued to Rowland on Sep. 5, 1972, the teachings of which are incorporated herein by reference. The disclosed method is for forming cube-corner microprisms in a cooperatively configured mold. The prisms are bonded to sheeting that is applied thereover to provide a composite structure in which the cube-corner formations project from one surface of the sheeting.